The Fruits of Former Civilizations and the Blossoms of the Contemporary

“But if nobody sees what they do, then nothing they do-even if in their own consciousness and their own feelings it should be undesirable engenders any such impulse in them.

‘The bliss’ prepared there by the ancient Romans has in recent times already so penetrated the nature of your favorites breeding on all the continents of that ill-fated planet, that it is even difficult to say which beings of which contemporary communities have inherited most from these ‘obliging’ Romans.

‘But as regards the inheritance passed down from the ancient Greeks, namely, the passion for inventing various fantastic sciences, this has not become inherent to all the three-brained beings of contemporary times equally, but it has passed down only to certain beings arising among the beings of all the contemporary large and small communities breeding on all the terra firma parts of the surface of that peculiar planet.

“Proportionately, this passion, namely, ‘to-invent-fantastic-sciences,’ has passed down from the ancient Greeks mainly to the beings of the contemporary community existing there under the name of ‘Germany.’ “The beings of that contemporary Germany can be boldly called the direct-heirs-of-the-ancient-Greek-civilization; and they can be so called, because at the present time it is just they who chiefly bring every kind of new science and invention into contemporary civilization.

“Unfortunately, my boy, the beings of that contemporary community Germany have in many respects, as it is said, surpassed the beings of ancient Greece.

“Thanks to the sciences invented by the ancient Greeks, only the being-mentation of other beings was spoiled and still continues to be spoiled.

425